We purchased almost 3 rai of land in San Kamphaeng, Chiang Mai (actually 2 rai, 300 ngarn, 14 wah) a few months ago.

We started building activities on the 7 May 2010, and work is progressing steadily now.

I am aiming for a total budget of 3 million baht for the land, house, garage, fencing, landscaping, and maybe some furniture if we are lucky.

My wife's father is a builder, so he is managing the project, and we are sourcing and purchasing all equipment, materialsand services ourselves. This makes it more rewarding, and sometimes more frustrating, as we have met both decentand honest people, and a few slippery snakes so far. we are suing local Thai labor from the nearby area, and also somepeople from the wife's home town close to Chiang Mai.

My goal is to share some of the most important lessons learnt along the way building here, and have other peopleshare their good and bad experiences also.

Lessons:1. Make payments via direct deposit or bank cheque - this way the person cannot come back and say you have not paid them2. Get a written statement for the work to be carried out - example for the soil infill, specify the reference point from which the soil height is to be measured, and specify total area. 3. Keep a sign on and off register at sight, and have each worker and the supervisor sign off each day on the hours worked4. For macro work (bobcat), get a receipt from the driver on the arrival and departure time, as this may vary with what the owner of the macro thinks his person worked.5. Get 3 or more quotes for materials in writing, then show the the lowest quote to the company you want to buy from, they will often match it, as they want your business.

I am also happy to share the project costs, in order to assist others in planning their project, and also get ideas from otherson how to minimize costs.

the buffaloes served as great lawn mowers for the first month or so - they have since gone back to theirowner in the neighboring farm. we may invite them back over when its time to fertilize the trees.

We started building activities on the 7 May 2010, and work is progressing steadily now.

I am aiming for a total budget of 3 million baht for the land, house, garage, fencing, landscaping, and maybe some furniture if we are lucky.

My wife's father is a builder, so he is managing the project, and we are sourcing and purchasing all equipment, materialsand services ourselves. This makes it more rewarding, and sometimes more frustrating, as we have met both decentand honest people, and a few slippery snakes so far. we are suing local Thai labor from the nearby area, and also somepeople from the wife's home town close to Chiang Mai.

My goal is to share some of the most important lessons learnt along the way building here, and have other peopleshare their good and bad experiences also.

Lessons:1. Make payments via direct deposit or bank cheque - this way the person cannot come back and say you have not paid them2. Get a written statement for the work to be carried out - example for the soil infill, specify the reference point from which the soil height is to be measured, and specify total area. 3. Keep a sign on and off register at sight, and have each worker and the supervisor sign off each day on the hours worked4. For macro work (bobcat), get a receipt from the driver on the arrival and departure time, as this may vary with what the owner of the macro thinks his person worked.5. Get 3 or more quotes for materials in writing, then show the the lowest quote to the company you want to buy from, they will often match it, as they want your business.

I am also happy to share the project costs, in order to assist others in planning their project, and also get ideas from otherson how to minimize costs.

I am sure there are many more lessons to learn...

Hi there and welcome to CTH:

You give an all-encompassing budget but where do you see the actual house [turn key] coming in?

As you say, sharing is good .... In my experience:Maybe your wife's father is the exception but you would find that the majority of small contractors would take steps if you mentioned payment by DD or cheque; very big ones in the other direction! Cash is usually the only acceptable payment for a number of reasons .... which doesn't stop you keeping an account where they sign for each payment.

Your signing on and off requirement suggests you are paying by day rate ..... with your wife's father in control maybe that will work but usually doesn't. With Thais [and others] it's not so much how long they work or how hard they appear to work ... it's what they achieve during the time they are on site. A price for the whole thing, or per section, or per talang or linear metre usually works better.

It's good to start out with firm guidelines in your mind but, while keeping control, it's also essential to work with your team and local practises if you want to keep stress levels [all round] at a reasonable level.

Good luck ... when do you hope to move in?

“Some days I am an optimistic pessimist ... other days I am a pessimistic optimist”

I see the house coming in at about 1.4 million, inclusive of bathrooms, kitchen, AC - but we will need to work hard to get that price.

Yep, we definitely keep our own receipt book - for those people or companies who dont have a receipt of their own - the company that installed theelectric pole is one such example.

We are paying the staff directly, dad manages the staff at site every day in terms of allocating work, and they sign a roster every day worked. Everyfortnight we pay them for days worked - salaries range from 150 baht to 300 baht per day. Builder dad did not want to accept anything, and is happy to build the house for his daughter and granddaughter, but we will give him between 10k and 15k per month to cover all his petrol and accommodation and other expenses (his home is in a town 120 km away). It is unusual I guess, but it gives a true indication of the real construction costs without any builder markups or "empty receipts" that I have heard about from others.

He is comfortable that he can build the house (17m x 13m) at 6500 baht complete per square metre. We hope to move in 1 October.

HiWelcome to CTHBe great to see your build.We hope to build in the Chiang Mai area, near On Tai next year.Looking for good architect and builder.Who did you use for plans any contact information would be appreciated ( you can email me personally kho303@aol.com ) Is your father-in-law available for a future build sometime next year??Hope all goes well with the build, look forward to the photos.

BKKBILL wrote:Few will be able to match your per square meter price for building. Looks like you are off to a grand start and fredlk won't be so lonely since setaputra is just about finished his build.I am another one who is planning a build in Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai province next year.

It seems that everyone is starting after me and finishing before me. (I'm not complaining, just stating facts. )And your price is less than half of mine. I hope you manage it.

Looking for good architect and builder.Who did you use for plans any contact information would be appreciated

We used a wife's cousin in Doi Tao, her home town, located 150 km from CM. We used another cousin engineer to sign the plans, in another city (big families here!!)

What I found was that I had to design the house myself more or less, as it was very difficultto communicate my design ideas to someone who has not designed an Australian stylehouse before, hence I found it easier to just give him the design shown above, and he translatedthen into AutoCAD for the engineer and builder. he also did all the rebar and structural designs.

I will be happy to pass you contact information for them, however you will most likely need toprepare plans before giving to them, and get someone to translate for talking. Pictures alsohelp, especially of the facade, so they have an idea of the look.

Is your father-in-law available for a future build sometime next year??

This is my first building project here, so I am curious to see the costs and quality, if its good Iam sure dad will be happy to build. But please be advised that he does not have a construction crew at the moment, we had to source labor from the local village and he also brought some people from the home town, Doi Tao. We stared off with 4-5 Myanmar people, but had to let them go when we found out they didnt have work permits.

Our biggest issue so far (apart from the soil guy trying to rip us off), is getting enough workers.

Few will be able to match your per square meter price for building.

I hope I can attain that price also! It is only by buying everything ourselves, and running around searching for the best deals for raw materials. It is also because it is "family price" and fully transparent - dad has absolutely no markup, the wife and me buy and organize delivery of all materials, and manage the time sheets and salary for the workers. I understand this is not possible if using a company or a local builder for the job - the builderwould not want you to know the true costs.

We got a quote from a local building company for the house, it was 1,669,921 baht - NOT including the bathrooms, kitchens, aircon - so all up it would have been 2.2 million - way too expensive. See attached Excel file. I wanted to compare with what dad could build, to what a company would charge. I can see huge markups in labor costs and basic material costs from the building company!

And your price is less than half of mine. I hope you manage it.

Would you have a cost excel you can post up, I would be interested to see where your major costs lie.

Max&Bee-in-CM wrote:Would you have a cost excel you can post up, I would be interested to see where your major costs lie.

No I don't have anything like that. If you read my posts at http://www.coolthaihouse.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1698 you will see that I have written about the costs and charges as they occur. To date with only the floors done and excluding the price of the land I've spent ฿1,819,337.00 exactly.I think to get the first of the 2 houses completed, watertight, glazed, plumbed and fitted will cost a further 1 million Baht or thereabouts.Fred.

The formwork for the ground beams is about 75% finished. We hope to finish tomorow and be readyto pour concrete on Sunday.

We have 8 staff working, but a few need to go back to the farm very soon, so we are rushing to getthe floor done in the next week.

The problem we are having with staff is: Many local workers are busy either with planting season,or with other construction jobs in the area. We are located about 18km from CM city, so in orderto use staff from the city, we would need to pick them up and drop off daily, but don't have thepickup truck or driver to do this. I offered to do this, but dad said its too dangerous if policestop me! Several people have come by the site looking for work, a few were hired and let go due toeither poor quality or laziness.

However, most of the workers have gone back to the farm, leaving only2 workers at site. The next job for them would be to fit the form-moldsfor the ground columns, in preparation for filling the columns withconcrete.

Attachments

The completed base of the house

The completed ground beams, looking from the back to the front of the house

Hi,Love following your build. I'm sure it's going to be a beautiful house.One question pops up. Why did they remove the form-molds after one day?My concrete knowledge is limited but even in cold Norway they leave the form-molds on for a while and waters the concrete to ensure that it cures properly before it dries. From the pictures it dose not look like they have been watering/covering the ground beams to ensure a high humidity level during the initial stage of the curing process.Improper curing can cause scaling, reduced strength, poor abrasion resistance and cracking. I would not like to build a house on a foundation prone to any of that.